2S6 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



The Manufacture of Elastic Fabrics. 



One of lite oldest of rubber products is elastic ivebbiyig. It is also one that is hut rarely described. The European 

 since 1914, zvere transferred from elastic webbiiiii containing rubber thread to plain cotton webs for military use. A 

 factories tvere therefore called upon lo furnish the -world's supply. The foreign demand .ttill continues, hence the timelin 

 of this article. 



ELASTIC FABRIC FROM RAW RUBBER. 



NEARLY TEN YEARS betore Goocivear's discovery ol vulcaniza- 

 tion, india rubber was used in the making of elastic fabrics. 

 A factory in America and another in France produced 

 quantities of these goods. The process was cutting balls of fine 

 Para rubber in halves and pressing the halves out fiat. From 

 these, long, wide strips were cut by a circular knife, the strips 

 being skived at the ends, and stuck together by hammering on 

 an anvil. The wide strips were then cut into threads by a slit- 

 ting m.ichine, the threads being wound on reels, and ieft for a 

 period of six weeks to harden. The weaving of this rubber 

 thread into the fabric was first done on hand looms, the rubber 

 being stretched as much as it would stand. Then the final touch 

 w-as given to impart elasticity to the fabrics. This was accom- 

 plished by moistening 

 the fabric, and run- 

 ning a heated iron 

 over it, which process 

 steamed and softened 

 the outer covering, 

 and allowed the 

 stretched rubber to 

 shrink to about two- 

 thirds of its former 

 length. This drew 

 the woven covering 

 with it and rendered 

 the fabric somewhat 

 elastic. 

 EARLY INVENTIONS. 



Goodyear and other 

 early inventors, after 

 the year 1840, spent 

 much time in experi- 

 ments along the same 

 lines, using sheets of 

 vulcanized rubber in- Fig. 1.— Cko.mptux-K.mi 



stead of threads. Any 



loosely woven, non-elastic fabric will stretch more or less on 

 the diagonal of the lines of the weave. This property was uti- 

 lized by cementing fabric so stretched to a sheet of rubber. This 

 was the basis of the Tyer patents. Another plan was to com- 

 bine a soft, woven cloth with a stretched sheet of rubber by 

 cementing the two together. Sometimes the rubber was placed 

 between two such non-elastic fabrics. When allowed to con- 

 tract, the rubber would pucker the cloth, or "shir" it, thus giving 

 the compound material the name of "shirred" goods. But it w-as 

 with the production of vulcanized rubber thread, and the adap- 

 tation of various looms to weaving into fabrics that the best 

 product was evolved. 



The materials entering into the manufacture of elastic fabrics 

 are cotton, wool and silk yarns or threads, and rubber thread. 

 The products are suspenders, garter webs, arm bands, goring for 

 clastic side shoes, fabrics for surgical bandages, corsets, ladies' 

 belts, and a thousand other articles where coinbined elasticity 

 and durability are required. 



WEAVING NON-ELASTIC FABRICS. 



In weaving ordinary non-elastic cloths, the yarn, after arrival 

 at the factory in skeins, is first dyed the required color, and 

 then wound on bobbins or spools, some to be used for the warp 

 and some for the weft or filling. In making the w^arp the requi- 



site number of spools of this yarn are placed in a creel, so 

 arranged as to carry out any desired color scheme ; the ends are 

 run through a reed, and then wound together on a large bobbin 

 called a warp beam. This warp is then taken to the loom, and 

 for the simplest form of cloth is threaded, by alternate threads, 

 on two harness frames. In operation of the loom, these two 

 harness frames rise and fall alt^nately, creating what is called 

 a "shed" or opening through the warp threads, for the passage 

 of the shuttle, which flies backward or forward at every "pick" 

 of the loom, carrying the weft through the opened-up warp at 

 each passage. 



When a fancy weave is desired, the number of harness frames 

 is increased according to the complexity of the design, and the 

 movements of the harness are governed accordingly, the harness is 

 _ used in the pattern 



sometimes running as 

 high as twenty-five. 

 In more elaborate de- 

 signs and effects the 

 Jacquard machine is 

 often employed, 

 which, instead of op- 

 erating groups or sec- 

 tions of threads by 

 the use of harness 

 frames, operates each 

 individual thread in- 

 dependently. This is 

 done by the use of 

 cards having perfor- 

 ations to correspond 

 with each thread in 

 the warp, such per- 

 forations being cut 

 according to design. 

 These cards revolve 

 round a cylinder, thus 

 governing the move- 

 ment of each thread as the shuttle travels back and forth across 

 the shed. Complex as are such looms, the elastic, narrow fabric 

 looms are more so, because, instead of weaving a single fabric, 

 they weave simultaneously a number of fabrics, from 12 to 48, 

 according to the width and character of the goods being made. 

 Each of these webs is made by a perfect loom in itself, having 

 its own set of warps, shuttle and harness, all contained in one 

 loom frame. The machines may make one or more patterns at 

 the same time, according to the scheme of harness draft, or 

 patterns cut on the Jacquards employed. 



THE ELASTIC WEB LOOM. 

 If lo this complex mechanism are added two new elements, one 

 may imagine the intricacy of the elastic web loom. One of these 

 requisites is the introduction of the rubber thread warp, woven 

 under a very high tension, bound or woven in between two 

 distinct cloths, often of different colors and texture, in such a 

 way as to hide the rubber threads completely. The other requisite 

 is the complicated arrangement of the harness, so as to produce 

 in the weaving two distinct cloths, an upper and a lower, so 

 bound together as to weave the stretched out rubber thread 

 between them, thus affording it protection against exposure, wear 

 and tear. 



The rubber threads are handled in the loom in the same way 



ES Suspender Loom. 



